- Tried & Tasted -

Thursday, 1 January 2015

Homemade Butter Caramels

It is 2015! Happy new year to one and all. I ended year 2014 candy making - caramel. The process was very fun and the end product was delicious. I followed the recipe of David Lebovit.

I used golden syrup (leftover from mooncake making) instead of corn syrup. I also used crème fraîche instead of heavy cream.

Salted Butter Caramels

Adapted from David Lebovit

(40 - 50 candies)

Ingredients:180g crème fraîche

1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

160g golden syrup

200g sugar

60g unsalted butter

1 teaspoon (added into the recipe) + 1/4 teaspoon (for sprinkling on top of finished caramel)

Steps to take:

Line a 23 cm loaf pan with foil and spray the inside with cooking spray.

Heat the cream with the butter in a small
saucepan with the vanilla and 1 teaspoon sea salt until the mixture
begins to boil. Remove from heat, cover, and keep warm while you cook
the syrup.

In a medium, heavy duty saucepan (4l), fitted with a candy thermometer,
heat the golden syrup with the sugar, and cook,
stirring gently, to make sure the sugar melts smoothly. Once the mixture
is melted together and the sugar is evenly moistened, only stir is as
necessary to keep it from getting any hot spots.

Cook until the syrup reaches 160ºC.

Turn off the heat and stir in the warm cream mixture, until smooth.

Turn the heat back on and cook the mixture to 130ºC.

Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf pan and wait ten minutes,
then sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon of the sea salt over the top. Set on a cool
rack and let cool completely. Once cool, lift out the foil with the
caramel, peel away the foil, and slice the bar of caramel with a long,
sharp knife into squares or rectangles.(In the end, I resorted to using a pair of kitchen scissors:)

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